


No Fuss

by vtn



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Autism, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-12
Updated: 2010-08-12
Packaged: 2017-11-18 09:08:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/559269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vtn/pseuds/vtn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock and John are both complicated people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Fuss

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for [a prompt on sherlockbbc_fic](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/575.html?thread=599615#t599615): _Sherlock isn't used to prolonged physical intimacy (anything more than a few seconds). John helps him get comfortable with being touched. Focus on touching, emotional/mental barriers, and sensuality._
> 
> It is also largely based on an extremely literal interpretation of the line "And when we're holding hands, it's like having sex to me." from The Lonely Island. (Not that Sherlock actually jizzed in his pants in that part or anything.)

We're all carrying baggage. Honest to God truth. Even Mrs. Hudson: the first time John woke her up in the night, and she came up the stairs and brought him warm milk. And stayed, while he cupped the mug in his hands and the steam gathered on his upper lip. She said the things she'd seen in her time were bad enough and "Lord knows what you've been through, love. No shame in screamin' every once in a while."

\---

"You were tortured," is Sherlock's response to this, six hours later in the calm of an English morning, cool self-satisfaction evident in his voice.

"You," says John, as he fries up an egg. "Are so brilliant. That was unbelievable."

"Really?" says Sherlock. John thinks this is Sherlock's one weakness. He loves hearing himself praised; breaks character when he does. It's almost funny how well flattery works on a man who claims to be so emotionless.

"No," says John, and begins to whistle. The egg crackles, going from translucent to white. John doesn't even turn around to watch Sherlock's face fall.

\---

John is reading _Time_ , a blue woolen blanket thrown over his lower half and his legs slightly curled under him, a forgotten cup of Earl Grey on the table by the sofa. It's an overcast evening, with the sun fading unnoticed behind the clouds, and only when John's eyes have to strain to read the print does he realize that it's gone dark. He considers reaching for the lamp, but he's tired, and lazy—he laughs a little; he warned Sherlock he was lazy when they moved in together—and so he puts the magazine down instead, curls up a bit tighter and closes his eyes. The passage of time becomes muddled and hazy as he dozes.

The door opens and someone enters, slamming it back onto its hinges—

and John is suddenly on his feet—

It is only when Sherlock's heavy hand on his shoulder pushes him back that he realizes he's grabbed the iron poker from the fireplace, and that he almost struck Sherlock with it. Hard, over the head, so as to concuss at least if not crack his skull. It takes a moment for John to loosen his grip on the metal.

"Sherlock, I..." he gasps.

"Sorry to disappoint you," says Sherlock. "It's only me." He unwraps the scarf from his neck and hangs it on the hook, making a noise that almost sounds like a laugh. "And they said I was the dangerous one to live with."

Dangerous. The word hits John hard, harder than he expected it to.

"I'm sorry," John finishes.

\---

They don't talk for a while. When John gets home from the clinic, he keeps to his room, warming up rice in the microwave and bringing it back up to eat. Sherlock is sometimes absent, other times in the front room staring, but not really looking, at the television with a nicotine patch on his arm.

It rains, and John's shoulder flares up. He phones in sick, curls up in his bed and tries not to think. He comes down the stairs only when his stomach betrays him by aching with hunger, cane in hand, swearing all the way down, legs stiff, arm too weak to grip.

"You're not sick," says Sherlock, sitting on the couch and looking out the window.

"No," says John. "I'm not. Really, you get better at this every day."

"Your sarcasm is not amusing me."

"Wasn't intended to." John stumbles into the kitchen, leaning hard on his cane. He grabs a sandwich out of the refrigerator and enters back into the front room. "Sherlock, listen. If you don't think this is working out, I swear, I will find...another arrangement."

"You forget that I won't," says Sherlock. He continues to stare into the rain. John shifts his focus so that he can see Sherlock's face reflected in the glass, expression unchanging. "And I want this to work out."

"Can't you try harder then?" John says, a little defeated. "Can't you try not to call me dangerous, even if you're thinking it? Or a fraud—don't you think I know? Can't you at least _pretend_ you aren't afraid of me, now that you know about—about—"

"I am trying," says Sherlock. His expression is still stoic.

"You don't even look like you _care_ about this," says John.

"You're watching my reflection," Sherlock says with a sigh. He turns around, looks John in the eye. "Don't."

"Then look at me when you talk to me."

"You won't like it." Sherlock runs a hand over his head, smoothing down curls that spring back up after him.

"Why?" John squints at Sherlock. "Because you actually don't care? Because you actually don't have emotions?" He raps his cane on the floor. "Because emotions are just a sign of weakness, is that it? Because normal people are just—"

"I do have emotions, John," says Sherlock, flatly, staring intently at a spot about two inches from John's head. Maybe Sherlock doesn't think he can tell. And then Sherlock's eyes look right into John's, once again, with a weird intensity that kind of unnerves him. "I am not, however, normal people."

\---

The second time John has one of his nightmares, Sherlock comes in with pillows and soundproofs John's room.

\---

"Sleep paralysis," says Sherlock in the morning, with dark circles hung under his eyes like window trimming. "Caused by prolonged sleep deprivation." John knows he has sleep paralysis. He's a doctor. But this time he'll let Sherlock be pleased with himself; he doesn't have the energy to enlighten him.

"Do you know why I'm sleep deprived?" John asks, shaking his spoon at Sherlock across the little table. Sherlock peers over the top of the book he is reading: _Native Plants of Maritime Canada_. "Because I have this flatmate who keeps the strangest hours, and drags me off on madcap adventures in the middle of the night."

"You enjoy them."

"Irrelevant," he says, and then laughs because he realizes he's stolen the turn of phrase from Sherlock.

"Also, you were sleep deprived when you moved in," says Sherlock. "Even supposing I didn't see the circles under your eyes, I noticed that you drink exclusively caffeinated tea; given the availability and near-identical taste of decaf, it's clear you needed the extra energy. Secondly, the second button hole on your shirt collar is stretched larger than the others, suggesting that you frequently do the buttons up in the wrong order and have to correct yourself. Could be a sign of poor vision, but you have perfect vision—even if I didn't know you didn't wear glasses or contacts, they'd never let someone with myopia handle weapons in the military. So sleep deprivation it is."

"Yep," says John. He swallows a spoonful of cold cereal.

"Citing me as the reason? Not likely; at least, I'm not the original reason. Unemployment usually leads to increased sleep, obviously. And yet you were sleeping _less._ Anxiety? Probable, job-hunting worries combined with post-traumatic stress—common cause of onset insomnia."

(That, and the persistent memory of a time when staying awake meant survival; when letting yourself nod off was equivalent to giving in, giving up. Until not sleeping became almost reflexive.)

"Anyway, John, you're wrong. It isn't irrelevant."

"Maybe not," says John. "Are you trying to say I need you?"

"You certainly don't like me," says Sherlock, "But you must keep me around for some reason. Depending on me to keep you out and about when sitting in bed panicking is the alternative seems reason enough to me."

"Who said I didn't like you?" Sherlock folds his fingers under his chin, having laid the book down on the table.

"Nobody does."

John looks down at his cereal bowl, scrapes at the bottom with his spoon. Then he looks back up at Sherlock, who is looking at his book with his usual expression of vague interest. He's _proud_ , isn't he. Proud that no one likes him. That he's insufferable. Because it sets him apart, makes him special. _I do have emotions, I'm just not normal people._

"Well that's a crock of shit," says John, and then he nearly gasps, because Sherlock's eyes fly wide open. And a switch turns on in John's brain, and he hears Sherlock say it again: _I do have emotions, I'm just not normal people_. "But I'm not your mum, and I'm not going to sit here and—and confirm for you that you're worth liking."

There is a long pause.

"You don't want to like me," says Sherlock finally. It's a decidedly weird thing to say. "I'm not..." Not what, not likable? And John wants to say, how could anyone not like you? Even though the answer is sort of obvious. John waits, but Sherlock never finishes his sentence.

"Listen," says John. "I have to deal with this too. It was different before the war but now, now people don't find me easy to live with." Please don't say you wonder why, in a sarcastic voice, he begs Sherlock silently. Sherlock doesn't. "And even that is enough, that you stayed, that you didn't try to find someone else."

"Clearly I'm not doing my work properly, though," Sherlock says, matter-of-factly. "Spending too much time calling you dangerous, which was intended to be a joke, though I see it fell flat, and a fraud, which I've never said; only idiots think psychosomatic means 'faking it'."

"I can't criticize you without completely despising you, is it?"

"I don't know," says Sherlock, "Is it?"

"Are you _mocking_ me?" John asks incredulously.

"I'm not mocking you, I—never mind." Sherlock looks back into his book. John can't tell what it is, but something has changed.

He goes back up to his room and all the pillows are back in their ordinary places. Figures.

\---

Sherlock is on a case, and John goes to him when he can't sleep, a bit unsure as to why.

"John," says Sherlock when John pads, silently he had thought, over to Sherlock's door. He's sitting with his violin against his chin, playing it with an imaginary bow. So as not to wake me up, John realizes. "This morning. When the knife was stuck in the knife rack, and you told me to use force. You called me Luke. Who is Luke? Clearly someone you've lived with, if you went immediately for that name in a domestic setting. Brother? Past flatmate? Past lover?"

John is collapsed against the doorframe, laughing. "Not force," he says, when he's finally able to catch his breath about a minute later. " _The_ Force. You. Have never seen _Star Wars_."

" _Star Wars_ , that's a film then?" Sherlock asks.

So the two of them settle into the couch with blankets and tea and watch _Star Wars_ episodes four through six, while the clock ticks its steady way toward dawn. Well, John half-watches, half-dozes. Sherlock watches and picks away in his usual fashion.

"Are you actually telling me," John asks woozily, "that you're going to comment on the kickback from a handgun, a handgun that happens to be a _laser_ gun, never mind the bits with the mystical energy flowing through everything in the universe, and, you know, the light sabres?"

"I can only suspend disbelief so far," Sherlock mutters. And then the battle on Jabba the Hutt's sail barge gets underway, and Sherlock is quiet. John shuts his eyes, and for a moment he thinks about leaning against Sherlock, letting Sherlock's warmth warm him. But then he realizes what an idiot he's being, so he just closes his eyes and smiles instead.

\---

And then after a prolonged chase through the streets of London, when they managed to catch the thief and confirm Sherlock's suspicion that he was the same bloke they saw in the deli earlier with the backpack, they're standing next to each other in back of an office building, John clutching his knees and panting. He looks up at Sherlock and feels a sudden rush of affection. No, he couldn't—but yes. Yes, he decides. He wants to kiss Sherlock.

He waits, though, even while they're in the taxi and their knees are almost touching. Sherlock doesn't speak, he just carries himself proudly and taps his foot to the rhythm of the cabbie's radio.

And in 221B, the two of them are standing there in the hall, and it's like Sherlock is just waiting for John to do something. John leans in, and Sherlock says "John," and "John, you don't want to—" but John knows exactly what he wants to do, and this is _right_ , and he presses his lips against Sherlock's and for one moment everything is perfect and good and all of their petty arguments, John's lost sleep, hell, everything that has happened to John in the last five years of his life doesn't _matter_ —

Sherlock makes a horrible, groaning noise, like nothing John has ever heard before and he pushes John off, his face contorted into the expression of someone who has seen something no one should ever see. John feels the blood run out of his head. Sherlock crumples to the floor, his head against his knees and his arms wrapped around his body, fingers digging into his trouser legs, a low wailing noise coming from wherever his mouth is buried.

The doctor inside John switches on: Sherlock is in sensory overload. Of course he is. John flips off the light switch and goes around shutting the shades. Remove all stimuli. He unplugs the microwave so that its clock will stop blinking. How can you remove the stimuli out of an apartment as packed as theirs? Thank god it's night now, and there's hardly even any city light leaking into the front room.

And then, as much as it hurts John to do it, as much as absolutely everything inside his head and his heart feels broken, he leaves Sherlock alone.

\---

"This is going to be a bit bad," says Sherlock. He's standing in front of John's bed. It's five in the morning. This is already a bit bad.

"Do go on," says John. He has pretty much given up by this point. Whatever Sherlock hits him with, it can't be a bigger punch to the gut than last night was. Tonight was.

"When I am touched," he says, "the results are unpleasant for you and for me."

"Oh," says John. He would have to be an idiot to not get that part, but he humors Sherlock anyway. Especially because he thinks Sherlock knows that he knows, if Sherlock even registered that he was turning all the lights off, removing all the stimuli.

"But," says Sherlock.

"There's a but?" John asks, dazed.

"I am willing," says Sherlock, "to try and get better. If you are willing to put up with me. I did warn you about getting too close to me. I make things difficult. I made my brother's life difficult, as you can probably imagine based on the way he's always phoning."

"And worrying," says John, still too stunned to say anything else or even consider the possibilities of what Sherlock is suggesting.

"And worrying," Sherlock agrees. "When we were children...sometimes even a shirt that was too brightly colored would put me out for an hour. Mum never knew what to feed me; I wouldn't eat anything but mashed potatoes most days or I'd starve myself." He shakes his head, with a sigh. "This is what you are dealing with."

"You," says John, almost giddy now, "You are not a sociopath."

"A misdiagnosis," says Sherlock. "But an official diagnosis, so, I am a sociopath, at least legally speaking. I am in fact high-functioning autistic, or so they tell me."

"It was a _joke_ ," says John. And an obvious one too, for certain values of 'obvious', since Donovan had called him a psychopath, which according to current literature is the same thing as a sociopath, both of them being obsolete terms for antisocial personality disorder. Which doesn't include tendency toward obsessive interests, abnormally acute visual perception, fixation with order, or, of course, susceptibility to sensory overload.

"Yes," says Sherlock, like he isn't following.

"Do you realize that people would have to think the way you do, to get your jokes?" John says, a laugh bubbling up behind his mouth.

"People are capable of thinking like me," says Sherlock. "They just choose not to."

"But here's the worst bit," John goes on. "I get your jokes now. I'm doomed."

"Beyond all repair," says Sherlock. And he shows, actually—blink and you'd miss it—the tiniest hint of a smile.

\---

They work out a system. Every day for a little while, John will put his hand out in front of him and Sherlock will touch John's hand with his own. John sort of marvels at it, even if it is immensely frustrating that he can't press their bodies together the way he wants to, bury his nose in Sherlock's neck and kiss him with all his might. But still, even just with Sherlock's fingers laid across his palm, the fingers that type text messages at breakneck speed and dance up and down the neck of his violin. It's not enough. But it's something.

He likes to watch Sherlock's face while they do it. There are the most delicate changes in his expression, as he goes from faintly horrified to faintly euphoric. A twitch of his lip, a flare of his nostrils. And it's John who keeps his poker face, biting his lip to keep from asking for more.

\---

"As much as it pains me to say this," says Lestrade, with a slight roll of his eyes, "You were completely right." John sighs and leans on his elbow on the inspector's desk.

"No crime then? Just a secret marriage and a case of mistaken identity?" he says, feigning boredom. It's beginning to be fun to play the game like Sherlock plays it.

"No crime." Lestrade looks immensely humiliated. John has a feeling like somewhere, at some point, someone probably told him not to humiliate officers of the law. Harry would be proud of him, really.

"Wasting your time, as always," says Sherlock. "John, I think this is cause for celebration. Can I get a fist bump?" He says the words 'fist bump' as if they are in a foreign language spoken exclusively by people he considers barbarians. John reaches out his fist and taps Sherlock's knuckles with his own. When they make contact Sherlock's mouth twists itself into a grin, ungainly and toothsome and bloody overjoyed.

Back in Baker Street, neither man can stop laughing. Sherlock's laugh is oddly comfortable, and it makes John wonder if he would be laughing more if he were in a different situation.

"Did we just have sex in front of the chief inspector of the police?" says John after gasping for air.

"Hm," says Sherlock, also regaining his composure. "Perhaps."

"Ooooh you should have seen his face," John says, and just imagining it he starts laughing all over again, falling down onto the sofa and looking up into Sherlock's dark eyes.

\---

John is dreaming of fire, of the smells of gun smoke and desert, of pain and pain and pain. He knows he's dreaming, recognizes the signs, but he grasps at reality, like he's trying to come up from under the water. Breathe. Breathe.

He surfaces. There is a hand pressed to his forehead.

"Sherlock?" he says softly, disbelieving.

"John," says Sherlock. There's some vulnerability in his face now, in the darkness.

"I don't know whether to yell at you for coming into my room in the middle of the night without knocking, or to just be happy because you're here, and you're touching me, and because I really do love you," John says all in one breath, feeling himself shake as he says it.

Sherlock's hand stays on his forehead.

"You realize, John, that I'll never be able to say the same," he says. "And I hope you know why."

"No, I don't," says John, refusing to have an emotional reaction until Sherlock clarifies.

"I only deal in what I can understand," says Sherlock. He moves his hand to John's cheek, flinching a little, but then carefully stroking John's stubbled skin.

"Good luck," says John with a small laugh. "Can I—" He sighs, squeezes his eyes shut, draws in a deep breath. "Can I hold your hand?"

"Yes," says Sherlock. He removes his hand from John's face and sits down on the bed, his back ramrod-straight against John's headboard. John's hand finds the small gap between their bodies and Sherlock's fingers snake into it. He gently holds Sherlock's hand in his own, rubbing his thumb over the back. And then he squeezes, and Sherlock squeezes back.

"Anyway," John says, "I think I'm choosing the second option."


End file.
